Today in the car, on my way to lunch, I heard a story on NPR about a 16-year old boy who lived in Brazil and committed suicide.
The story would've been sad but unremarkable, but they went on to talk about how the boy had created a CD of original music that he recorded in his own home that is now being distributed by Luaka Bop.
His parents knew he was intelligent and serious. They didn't know he was musically talented, and they didn't know he was suicidal. The NPR story stated that, knowing his fragile state of mind, his parents tried to stay with him as much as they can. There's some discrepancy there, isn't there, but who knows what their family life was like? He spent a lot of time on the computer, in chat rooms: music chat rooms, and suicide chat rooms. I didn't know there was such a thing; I'm not surprised. His screen name was Yoñlu. I'm listening to his music right now.
The NPR story wasn't long, and I arrived at the parking lot of the restaurant where I wanted to eat lunch a few moments before it ended. I sat in the car and watched an overweight woman assist an elderly lady in a wheelchair into a van, as a bearded man with an incredible upper body climbed into the truck parked facing me, while listening to Marco Werman tell the story. Marco told the story unemotionally and without, I don't know, breaking a sweat. I had sunglasses on. I cried.
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